Well, Vitale testified that Rizzuto told him, "We're our own little family, there's about 18, 20 of us, we stay by ourselves." He also said in court that Montreal was "supposed to report to Massino but they have their own little splinter group."B. wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:47 pm Points to consider, re: Montreal's affiliation:
- Nick Rizzuto challenged the leadership decades ago as well and they killed the acting captain Paolo Violi who was also the heir apparent. The crew remained Bonanno members. We don't know the exact details of Montagna and Rizzuto's disagreement -- Rizzuto refused to allow Montagna to take control, that's for sure, but how that corresponds to wider Bonanno affiliation is unclear.
- FBI reports from the mid-1960s discuss how the Montreal decina operated autonomously and in 1968 emissaries visited Joe Zicarelli and wanted the Montreal decina to break off, but he convinced them otherwise. When Mickey Zaffarano visited them in the 1970s, he told Violi that Montreal was too independent and needed to be in closer communication with NYC.
- While Montagna went to war with the Rizzuto faction, there were Montreal Bonanno members on his side as well. The Montreal war can't be framed as "Bonanno" vs. "Rizzuto", but a conflict between Bonanno members that included other organized crime figures on each side. We don't know if the goal of the Rizzuto faction was to denounce Bonanno membership entirely or simply to maintain power while retaining their Bonanno membership.
- We lack significant inside information on who exactly has or had Bonanno membership in Montreal, with only a handful ever being confirmed in any era.
- Frank Cotroni Sr. appeared as a member being replaced on a Bonanno induction list following Cotroni's 2004 death. This indicates communication was still ongoing between Montreal and NYC. It also lends itself to Cicale's info via Baldo Amato about NYC demanding higher Christmas tribute, which they reluctantly gave to liaison Sal Montagna. This would have occurred ~2005.
- While Sal Vitale felt Vito Rizzuto was cold regarding the Sciascia murder and refused to accept a promotion to official capodecina, Rizzuto did not say anything about formally breaking off, and in fact suggested his father Nick take the position of official capodecina. This suggests Rizzuto was not intersted in outright denouncing Bonanno affiliation. The Montreal decina held a banquet for Vitale that included the entire Montreal membership and he was chaffeured around Montreal by Bonanno member Joe DiMaulo, who would later side with Sal Montagna.
- It is fair to say that Vitale received mixed messages, but his impression that Montreal was formally breaking off was his own intuitive feeling, not something substantiated by hard evidence. While Vitale was used by Massino during this period as a representative of the Bonanno leadership in meetings with other NYC leaders as well as Montreal, he was admittedly kept out of Massino's inner circle by this time and his knowledge of high-level affairs was limited. His perspective is important, but it conflicts with other information and his experience in Montreal shows as much deference to the Bonanno faily as it does a "cooling off."
--
The details from Project Otremens on Montreal haven't been made clear, but what has come out so far suggests there remains a Bonanno connection of some kind to Montreal.
- The sergeant who supervised Project Otremens recently identified Montreal's affiliation as "NYC" on his list that identified Hamilton as "Buffalo" and Toronto as "'ndrangheta." He didn't elaborate much on Montreal, but said Bonanno member Vincenzo Morena had existing mob ties there in addition to Hamilton. Morena was apparently in Montreal prior to his cooperation with Otremens.
- Following Morena's induction into the Bonanno family, Domenico Violi told him the earlier issues there were over and offered to introduce him to three well-known Montreal mafia figures, at least one of which is believed (but not confirmed) to have been inducted as a Bonanno member, and another being the son of a previous Bonanno soldier and nephew of the historic capodecina. We don't know if Violi implied making a formal introduction as "amico nostra," but if nothing else it indicates that the non-Sicilian faction in Montreal is amiable to the Bonanno family given Violi's offer to introduce Morena, a member of a Bonanno NYC decina, to three prominent Montreal mafia figures.
- Joe Violi's option of joining the Bonanno family was apparently independent of Morena's induction into the Bonanno family. It is possible if not likely that Joe Violi was offered induction into the Bonanno Montreal decina, where friends of his deceased father still lived. It is unlikely Joe Violi was offered membership by the NYC Bonanno element, who inducted Morena seemingly through his history as a Bonanno associate in the 1990s.
--
- In Scoppa's book, his knowledge of formal mafia affairs appears to be vague, suggesting he was not a formally made member of any group. He does, however, refer to a comment from Stefano Sollecito in 2015 about them recently establishing their own "family."
- If the Rizzuto faction did formally break off and receive recognition as their own mafia family, it does not necessarily rule out the possibility that other mafia figures in Montreal have retained Bonanno membership.
- From what has come out of Otremens, Violi did not mention Montreal becoming its own family, but we are still missing too much from that investigation. If the three Montreal mafia figures he referred to were now recognized as part of an official Montreal family, it would indicate the Bonannos provided some degree of approval again given his willingness to introduce an NYC-sponsored Bonanno member to them.
--
Precedent shows the Montreal decina operating independently of NYC and even attempting to back away from the Bonanno family while ultimately retaining their membership in the family over decades, including after conflicts much more severe than the Sciascia murder. For example, the Cotroni leadership sided with Joe Bonanno and remained friendly/loyal to him long after he was deposed, even attempting to break off mid-way through this process.
In the same way the Hamilton group was revealed to still be formally affiliated with Buffalo (something we would have never known without Morena's cooperation), we can't rule out a similar possibility in Montreal. We can be confident that Cosa Nostra membership and recognition is still valuable to Italian and Sicilian figures in Montreal, especially those who were previously inducted into the Bonanno family, so whatever the arrangement is, it is unlikely they made a decision that would devalue their Cosa Nostra membership.
Up to at at least early 2004, U.S. officials apparently still considered the Montreal crew part of the Bonannos. When he was charged, Vito Rizzuto was described as "the most influential Bonanno family member in Canada, the only family with a significant presence in Canada." Of course, this was before Massino flipped later that year.
But by 2013-2014, we see the U.S. feds not only referring to the "Rizzuto Crime Family," but also differentiating between it and the "Bonanno Crime Family" in the same sentence. That can't be ignored.
As far as precedence goes, that can only be taken so far. My point being, and this goes to my response to antimafia below, the more time goes by and there are less members that can be identified - or even potential members identified, as seems to be often the case with Montreal - the less one can rely on precedent to assume there could still be any living Bonanno members in Montreal; much less a recognized, formally affiliated crew there.
So having removed 12 deceased names, how many of the names above are confirmed made members.
That question also goes for Vincenzo DiMaulo and Domenico Tozzi, who motorfab mentioned.
. Merci pour l'explication 
(l'autre fois j'ai appris ce qu'était "faire la charlotte", j'ai bien rigolé aussi)